Mummy Dearest

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #18

Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel discover a new intruder inside the Rock of Eternity — a magical Egyptian mummy who claims he was cursed by the wizard Shazam and Black Adam centuries ago and released during Black Adam’s recent rampage. How tough could a dried-up old mummy be? Captain Marvel knocks his jaw off… but he can regenerate himself easily. And he’s got a mystical device called the Horn of Horrors that can summon hordes of demons. Cap can beat up demons all day, but all Mary has on her side is her speed. And the mummy is creating even more demons back on Earth, too. Can the Marvels defeat the mummy and his monsters?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a simple, straightforward story, with a few clever twists. And Mary gets a rare chance to show off her superhero bonafides, too. All that, plus a not-so-subtle setup for some future stories, too.

Detective Comics #867

There’s a new gang in town — the Jokerz, a bunch of private citizens, mostly law-abiding, who have gotten addicted to a low-dose variant of Joker venom. They get called together flash-mob style to run amok, trash places, and cause chaos. Their ringleader is a man dressed up as the Joker, who engineers a regular Jokerz riot into something more deadly when he shoots and wounds a cop, who then shoots one of the Jokerz. When the gang later marches on the Gotham Police Department, Commissioner Gordon orders his cops to use rubber bullets, convinced that the Jokerz aren’t a violent gang. Turns out he was wrong. Now in addition to angering his own cops, a new player is impersonating the Batman and telling Gotham’s citizens to emulate Batman’s vigilante tactics.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nice to see the Jokerz outside of the old “Batman Beyond” cartoon, and the Joker impersonator looks like he could be an interesting villain. Only quibble — Batman sure didn’t do very much in this issue… Hopefully, that’ll change later…

Green Lantern #56

Giant-headed super-psychic Hector Hammond gets extraterrestrial help in breaking out of prison, and he goes off looking for Hal Jordan and Carol Ferris. Hal, meanwhile, is in Minnesota, trying to find Larfleeze, who’s busy stealing everything he can, no matter how valueless. Hal eventually finds Larfleeze working on… a letter to Santa? Hey, when you’re the greediest thing in the cosmos, why not try to hit up the Patron Saint of Greed for some more loot? But before long, Hammond shows up and grabs away Larfleeze’s orange lantern, intent on freeing Ophidian, the orange lantern entity trapped inside. Certainly two ring slingers can fight off a floating, paralyzed telepath, right? Well, not unless Hammond eats the orange lantern…

Verdict: Thumbs up. An issue focusing on the awesomely greedy Larfleeze? Oh, yes, I’ll have more of that, please.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Lubbock’s Star Comics has a new website design. Go check it out…
• Full trailer for next year’s “Thor” movie. Doesn’t look bad. A bit longer than I was expecting, but doesn’t look bad.
• Whoa, the triceratops we’ve all been familiar with since kindergarten may have just been a baby version of another dinosaur?
• The “Friends of Lulu” organization advocating for women comics creators is in trouble. Let’s hope it can survive…